


Black Box

by pomegrenadier



Series: Knife to a Gunfight [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Imperial Agent Content, Consent Issues, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Horror, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Manipulation, Psychological Horror, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: Legate has defected from the Empire. Legate is a good person. Legate is their friend.Cipher Nine plays the hand he's dealt.
Relationships: Hunter (Star Wars: The Old Republic)/Male Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine & SIS Team
Series: Knife to a Gunfight [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010199
Comments: 25
Kudos: 58





	Black Box

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing explicit, but the canon Chapter 2 rape subtext is taken as text-text, and that forms the background radiation of the fic.

Well, the keyword works. Their prospective Imperial defector will be out of commission for half an hour. Plenty of time. Ardun Kothe paces, arms folded, while Hunter searches the Imperial. "Damn, how many knives do you _need?"_ Hunter says, finding yet another one and adding it to the pile.

"What do we have on him?" says Ardun.

Hunter sighs and pats the Imperial on the cheek. His head lolls a little. "Kiall Telassa, designation Cipher Nine. In terms of skill set he's me, but, y'know, evil. Augmented very literally up to the eyeballs—it's all infiltration and assassination stuff. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time he's been fucked in the head by Intelligence, either, some special program for Cipher trainees. The medical records are in the file."

"So why the extra conditioning?"

"You remember the _Dominator_ thing a couple months back? Darth Jadus? This is the guy who made it all go away. Took down a terrorist network, then played genocide chicken with a crazy Dark Lord and _won._ So that ought to give you an idea of what we're dealing with, here."

Ardun nods. "He scared them."

"Oh, definitely." Hunter eyes the comatose agent for a moment, then shakes his head. "You said he got evasive about why he wanted to flip?"

"It's not conclusive," says Ardun. "The Force isn't a lie detector. It's not a truth detector, either. He might be playing it close to the chest for perfectly benign reasons, or he might be waiting to see how we operate so he can tailor his story to us."

"Yeah, that's what I'd do." Hunter grins. "This is gonna be fun. Been a while since I got to play with someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"He might not be an enemy. Don't push him too far and turn him into one, Hunter."

"I hear you, boss."

* * *

Hunter doesn't work for Ardun Kothe.

* * *

"Hey, I'm glad you could make it," Chance says, smiling as Legate enters his hospital room.

The Imperial smiles back. It's not a huge smile, but it's warm. "Glad to be here. You look much better," he says as he sits down next to the bed. His Republic accent is pretty solid—he sounds like he wandered out of the midlevels of Coruscant.

"I feel much better. Thanks to you," says Chance. He twists his hands in the bedsheets. "Look, I—I wanted to say that I'm sorry. For not trusting you, before. It's really easy to get paranoid, but ... you came through. Proved me wrong. Even though you could've let me down."

They're not exactly in public, but a _little_ paranoia never hurt anybody.

"I know you would have done the same for me," says Legate. He leans forward in his chair, rests his elbows on his knees, laces his fingers between them. "And you don't need to apologize, Chance. There's nothing to forgive."

Chance lets out a breath. "We're good, then?"

"We're good," says Legate. He hesitates, then says, "You said the prognosis was ... mixed?"

"Yeah, they got me pretty bad," Chance says ruefully. "But I'll probably get back most of my range of motion, eventually. Won't be winning any Huttball tournaments at the office, if you catch my drift, but I can still do the desk job stuff. PT's gonna be a real pain, though."

"We'll be, ah, _lucky_ to have you," Legate says, lips twitching.

Chance points at him. "Did you just—was that a joke? Did you just make a joke? Are you allowed to make jokes?"

Legate smirks. "You tell me," he says innocently.

Chance rolls his eyes, reaches over to pat him on the arm. His midsection twinges, but not too badly. "You're good people," he says. "We're keeping you."

"Aw, thanks," Legate drawls.

Chance settles back against the pillows. Okay. Time to ask the question he doesn't know if he wants an answer to. "So how are you holding up?"

"Well enough," Legate says, waving a hand vaguely. "Working two jobs at once is ... difficult, but ..." He trails off, shakes his head. "It's worth it."

"I meant—with the, uh, the failsafe. Anybody giving you a hard time with it?"

Legate sighs, but his tone stays light, maybe a little exasperated. "No. I don't _like_ it, of course, but I do understand the logic. You're just being careful."

Chance relaxes. He twists his mouth to one side in sympathy. "They'll come around," he says reassuringly. "You've proven yourself to me, at least."

Legate ducks his head, self-conscious. "Thanks."

* * *

He has never wanted to kill someone for being so easily manipulated, before.

* * *

"You are adapting very well," Wheel observes.

"To the team?" says Legate.

"To your programming." Wheel watches Legate, but does not discern more than mild surprise in reaction. He continues, "Many organics in your position would react badly to the equivalent of an override code. You are not like most organics."

"Call it pragmatism." Legate tilts his head to the side. "What about you? How do you feel about it? Your own programming, your overrides ..."

Wheel spreads his hands. "I am a droid, Legate. My purpose is to serve Master Kothe. I do not object to the limitations on my actions and cognition, or the safeguards in place to prevent malfunction. They are what define me."

"An interesting perspective."

"As long as I act within the bounds of my programming, there is no need to use my overrides," says Wheel. "Fulfilling my programming brings me satisfaction. I am content."

Legate nods thoughtfully. "That makes sense," he says. "Thank you, Wheel. I appreciate your insight."

* * *

Vector is also content. He does not talk to Vector, if he can help it.

* * *

So the thing about Legate is that he's ... not awful? Saber was expecting him to be ... she doesn't know. Colder, maybe. But he saved Chance, visited him in the hospital. He's guarded, but not haughty about it. Just kind of quiet. Hunter teases him; he teases right back. He keeps his distance from Kothe, but then, Kothe keeps his distance from everybody else.

Legate offered to help her with repairs, and she took him up on it, as much out of curiosity as efficiency.

"You've got a team, too, right?" says Saber, cracking open the casing on her damaged comms.

"For a certain value of 'team,'" he says. He's sorting through spare parts; the bin full of salvaged electronics is kind of a mess, and everybody's been putting off going through it for weeks.

Saber pulls out the burnt-out power core. "Kaliyo seemed like a real character. In the three and a half seconds I got to talk to her, that first day."

"Indeed. She's our diplomatic specialist," Legate says with a straight face.

"Ha. Seriously, though. You don't ... talk about them. Don't seem very close to any of them."

"Should I be?"

"I mean, ideally, yeah." She eyes him for a second. "You got any actual friends, on your team?"

Legate sits back, and looks directly at her, expressionless. "You feel sorry for me."

"I feel like you've been pretty much on your own for a long time, and it's only going to get worse, Imperial-side," she says.

His head tilts down; it's not quite like breaking eye contact, but it's close. "And Republic-side?" he says quietly.

"That depends on you," says Saber.

He takes a breath, nodding, pressing his lips together on the exhale. "I—can't make any promises I'll be any good at this," he says.

Saber smiles. "I'm not hearing a hard 'no,' there, Legate."

"Hey, Saber, you having fun with our pet Imperial?" Hunter calls out from the doorway.

She looks up at him and sniffs. "We're _bonding,"_ she says. "You should try it sometime, asshole."

"Maybe I should," says Hunter, heaving a sigh. "What do you say, Legate? You've been spending so much time with Saber, I'm starting to get lonely."

"Why don't you join us, then?" says Legate, gesturing at the junk arrayed across the table.

"Yeah, come on, Hunter, we're supposed to be a team," Saber says. "Teammates help with the boring shit. That's the rules."

Hunter laughs and wanders over to them, drapes an arm across Legate's shoulder as he leans in. Legate stiffens, then practically melts against him. "Okay, if you insist ... What are we working on?" says Hunter.

"Busted gear," says Saber, waggling the piece she's in the middle of dissecting. "That last op got a little dicey, and I may or may not have been smacked in the face with a _really_ spicy ion pulse."

"Ouch," Hunter says with a wince.

"Yeah, ouch. But hey, least it was just my comms and datapad that went out," says Saber. She glances at Legate. "Crap—your hardware's shielded, right?"

"Sith have a tendency to electrocute first, explain what the hell they actually want from you later, so ... yes," he says, grimacing.

"That's messed up," Saber says.

He shrugs, and Hunter wobbles. "It's not the highest item on my list of grievances," says Legate, "but it's definitely up there."

"Well, you've got nothing to worry about on that front anymore," says Saber. "No zapping here."

"Unless you piss off Wheel," says Hunter. He pouts at the lack of reaction. "C'mon, Legate, that was funny. I'm funny. You're allowed to laugh at stuff now."

"Oh, you know. Imperial. No sense of humor."

"Guess we'll have to work on that," Hunter says, looking fond. He tugs on a stray lock of hair, then tucks it behind Legate's ear.

They're cute. Hunter's whole smarmy bastard act seems to slip, around Legate, like he actually cares about their newest teammate. Saber thinks they'd be good for each other. Balance each other out a little. You take happiness where you can find it, in this line of work.

* * *

They're naive, they're so fucking _naive,_ he _hates_ them—

* * *

"Settling in?"

"Yes, sir." Legate stands with his hands clasped behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart. He could be looking at Ardun, or at the wall behind him, or at something on an internal display. The Force is only marginally more helpful for reading him. He's like Hunter—he lies like he breathes, and he guards his feelings well.

But Ardun trusts Hunter, and Legate has an off switch. He regrets that it's necessary—he pities Legate, truth be told. That doesn't mean he'll take the risk of not using every tool he's got. Not with so much at stake.

"Keyword: onomatophobia," Ardun says. "Report your impressions of the team."

Legate's expression dissolves from its default careful neutrality to something eerily blank. The Force twists around him, a brief spike of fear, quickly swallowed by ruthless cold. Ardun isn't sure whether it's discipline or hatred. He doesn't like the feel of it, either way. Legate says, toneless, "Chance is a liability. He is a coward, and squeamish. Saber is too honest for espionage but seems fully capable of assassination, as long as it's at a distance. Hunter is complicated. I am afraid of him."

Ardun laughs a little. Trust the spy to be unnerved by his opposite number. "That he is. I have to disagree about Chance—the kid's a little green, but he's got depths. He might surprise you. You certainly surprised him. You missed one, though."

Legate continues to stare straight ahead.

Ardun waits a beat, then prompts, "Wheel, Legate. He counts as part of the team."

"Wheel fancies himself a philosopher," Legate says, a little more personality creeping back into his voice in the absence of an immediate command. Unfortunately, that personality is all sneering irony.

Ardun shakes his head. Imperials. Always underestimating anything nonhuman. "High praise," he says dryly. Then he takes a step back, folding his arms. "Sorry to force the issue, Legate, but I needed you to be honest with me."

Legate's stance shifts, tension returning to its coiled-snake baseline. He presses his lips together, then says, "I know. I understand, sir. But don't ask me to like it."

Ardun scrutinizes him in the Force. "You're angry."

"Don't ask me to like it," Legate repeats.

Hunter would probably chime in with a sly comment about _ordering_ him to like it—that's Hunter's job, to push and pry and test people, see what they're made of, find the fault lines. But Ardun's job is to keep the team together. To lead them.

He puts a hand on Legate's shoulder, an almost fatherly gesture. "You can feel however you want about it, as long as you come through for us," he says. He doesn't trust Legate, not even an inch—he _wants_ to; he always wants to believe that people are good. But the galaxy isn't kind, and Legate is dangerous whether or not he's truly on their side.

Then again, his whole team is made up of dangerous people.

"You came through for Chance, when it mattered," Ardun says. "He told me you paid him a visit. Strange thing to do for someone you consider to be a coward."

Legate raises an eyebrow. "I never said I didn't _like_ him."

Ardun laughs once, and lets his hand drop to his side. "Dismissed, Legate."

"Sir," he says, bowing, then striding for the door.

Ardun clears his throat. "Legate."

He pauses, but doesn't face Ardun again. "Yes, sir?"

"We don't bow to commanding officers in the Republic. I'm not a Sith Lord."

"... My apologies. Force of habit." A beat. "Was there anything else, sir?"

"No, nothing else," says Ardun, and Legate ghosts out of his office.

* * *

"I think Hunter's sweet on you, Legate," Saber says, nudging him in the side.

Legate laughs at the funny joke from his teammate, because he is permitted to laugh at things now that he is with the SIS. He's so grateful to them, for being kind, for welcoming him, for treating him like part of the team.

Cipher Nine imagines slitting all of their throats while they sleep.


End file.
